Orion Begins Ramp-Up With Hire Of Sony Exec Dan Kagan

The recently restarted Orion Pictures has made it official, making Sony Pictures’ Dan Kagan its first big hire since parent MGM relaunched it this month as a new, stand-alone marketing and distribution outfit under president John Hegeman. Kagan will become VP Production & Acquisitions after exiting his Sony role as Director of Development.

Kagan and VP Production Eric Fineman both departed Sony Pictures today, with the latter segueing to Sony-based Pascal Pictures.We’re hearing that their contracts were up and that SPE currently is not looking for replacements. Variety broke the news of their exits.

Starting next week, Kagan will manage the development, production and acquisition of feature films on behalf of Orion. At Sony, he helped out on pics including MGM’s The Magnificent Seven. He also had oversight at Sony of the upcoming Flatliners redo, Rough Night and The Dark Tower. Before that he was at Break Media and MGM early in his career.

Fineman, who was director of development at Sony before being promoted in spring 2016, worked among other pics on the studio’s Spider-Man Homecoming. That hit reboot was produced by Marvel and Pascal Pictures, the latter run by ex-Sony chief Amy Pascal.